Mayor arrested for hacking

Never mind worrying about script kiddies, in Israel you have to worry about your systems being hacked by the mayor. According to Aretz Tiberias Mayor Zohar Oved will be prosecuted for conspiring to commit a crime, infiltrating a computer system and invasion of privacy.

The State Prosecutor's Office said the mayor copied material from the municipal computer server and three other computers to stop a whistle-blower revealing details which might lead Oved to face corruption charges. Oved ordered Avner Sharon, the owner of a computer firm, to carry out the hack as part of a case against a whistleblower Benny Eliahu.

A local disciplinary court convicted Eliahu of misreporting his hours worked and improperly passing information to a journalist. It used information that Oved and Sharon had found on the server.

Eliahu appealed the ruling to the Petah Tikva District Court, which last month acquitted him of all the charges. Eliahu was granted "protected whistle-blower" status which meant he could not have been dismissed.

Judge Noga Ohad ruled that hacking Eliahu's personal email mailbox was an invasion of his privacy, equivalent to searching through his intimate personal effects or through a drawer in his office that contains personal items. Oved is already on trial for violating income limits and forging corporate documents, allegations related to the 2003 mayoral elections.